When working in a fast-paced business world where you are continually recruiting and managing thousands of staff on variable (contingent) contracts, moving your entire recruitment process online can vastly improve operational efficiency, and save you time and money.

A case example is Delaware North, a leading hospitality and food services supplier that employs 250 permanent staff, plus 4,000 staff on variable contracts - They are now reaping the benefits of their new careers website which enables their recruitment processes to be managed online.

Delaware North Companies

Delaware North is the exclusive provider of hospitality and food services at Wembley Stadium, Emirates Stadium, iPro Stadium, the Valley and Craven Cottage. They also have outlets at London Heathrow Airport, Edinburgh Airport, Glasgow Airport, East Midlands Airport and the Manchester Runway Visitor Park.

As such, they attract a high volume of candidates for their variable requirements. Naturally, this results in a lot of compliance paperwork gathering and reference checking. The recruitment team realised that to service its venues properly and attract the right candidates it had to streamline its processes:

The company’s procedures were labour intensive - staff had to use both offline and online processes, which meant they were often bogged down with the manual inputting of information, which slowed down the system and the time to hire.

As a dynamic business, they also recognised that it had to enhance the candidate experience and attract the right calibre of candidates for opportunities within the business from entry level to middle management posts.

This prompted Delaware North to contact Eploy, and we immediately saw that the company’s recruitment processes could be dramatically improved if they and their candidates could ‘do more’ online.

Mobile functionality was also absolutely crucial to this brief. Most of Delaware’s new hires are young people, so they are more likely to be using mobile devices users, so it was very important to make sure that they can navigate as easily as if they are at a PC or Mac.

By moving it all online the recruitment process has improved significantly. We introduced candidate features such as online interview selector, downloadable resources and a profile creator that candidates could use for future applications.

Importantly, the online process includes evidence of eligibility to work, which is then uploaded onto the candidate profile, as well as pre-screening competency questions. Further, the process of checking references has been radically improved: candidates can submit details of their referees on the website and the system automatically contacts each. Any references which are not returned can be prompted or a request for a new referee is sent to the candidate.

Agency use and time to hire - halved

Since launching the new careers website:

Agency use for recruitment has dropped by 50%

Via the website, average monthly new candidate registrations have increased by 33%

Average monthly applications increased by 52%

In parallel, the biggest growth can be seen in the number of monthly log ins and applications from a mobile device, with average monthly website applications via mobile devices increasing by 196%.

The candidate’s “self-service” functionality has reduced time to hire by 50%

The introduction of pre-screening questions has directly improved the calibre of candidates

Labour costs have also reduced, and the savings have been re-invested in improved training and development for new starters. Delaware North has also been recognised at the 2014 In-House Recruitment Awards and is a finalist in the ‘Best Career Website’ category – we wish them the best of luck for the final in November.